UT Tyler Office of Marketing and Communications

The University of Texas at Tyler Conducts Innovative Research with Advanced Data Analytics
Lab

Media Contact: Hannah Buchanan Public Affairs Specialist Marketing and Communications The University of Texas at Tyler 903.565.5769 or 903.539.7196 (cell)

The University of Texas at Tyler's Data Analytics Lab offers students the opportunity
to conduct cutting-edge research with advanced technology, Dr. James Lumpkin, College
of Business and Technology dean, announced.

Founded last year by associate professor of computer science Dr. Robert P. Schumaker,
the lab has been a focal point of analytics work at The University of Texas at Tyler.
Students and faculty conduct research in textual/financial prediction, sports analytics,
healthcare informatics and business intelligence.

"This new Data Analytics Lab will expand the capability of our faculty and students
to conduct relevant research in our data analytics program. This is one of the most
important new academic fields, and this new lab enables the college to remain on the
cutting edge," Lumpkin said.

The lab features eight high-end workstations, two powerful servers for analytics and
machine learning as well as a prime network connection to National Science Foundation
supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center. The lab is funded by the college
and the university's Office of Research and Technology Transfer.

"Healthcare analytics is a vast area, and I can envision the potential my research
has to bring meaningful insights to the industry," said computer science graduate
student Rohit Dixit of India, who is working with Schumaker on a project to improve
prescription drug safety.

"By analyzing the combinations of several thousand drugs across millions of historical
records, the TylerADE System will be able to compute a predicted drug severity score
that can be used by pharmacists and physicians at the point of prescription to determine
potential health hazards," Schumaker said.

Textual/Financial PredictionResearchers combine textual financial news articles and machine learning to create
a new class of high-frequency stock trading engine [HFT] that can recognize and adapt
to immediate market changes, according to Schumaker.

"Knowing that major traders are now using HFT systems that rely on textual information,
our newest area is to evaluate whether we can manipulate stock prices by adjusting
press releases," he said.

"Our system looks at three aspects – the words used in a news release, market timing
and media outlets – to build a type of press release engineering system that companies
can use to manage their stock price," Schumaker added.

Sports AnalyticsResearchers find relevant data from sports-related databases to produce forecasts.
Projects include predicting winning in the National Football League using a sentiment
analysis of Twitter and technical analysis strategies borrowed from Wall Street to
determine relative public sentiment trajectories as a simple time-series signal.

"This project has shown unexpected promise that further technical trading techniques
might also be ported into the sports wagering markets to improve odds-setting as well
as more accurate predictions," Schumaker said.

One of the 14 campuses of the UT System, The University of Texas at Tyler features
excellence in teaching, research, artistic performance and community service. More
than 80 undergraduate and graduate degrees are available at The University of Texas
at Tyler, which has an enrollment of almost 10,000 high-ability students. The University
of Texas at Tyler offers courses at its campuses in Tyler, Longview and Palestine
as well as a location in Houston.

Relevant Research: Founded by Dr. Robert Schumaker (shown) in the computer science
department, the Data Analytics Lab has been a focal point of analytics work at The
University of Texas at Tyler.